#tom says there's always a top dog in 3.08

[pynkhues]

I remember reading this great post about how succession hints very interestingly at the trope of a rich men killing/destroying the life of a male working-class lover. it's never explicit, but there seems to be a real running undertone. there's the whole vibe with roman and the trainer (and he even jokes about suing him). plus if you look at the conversation kendall was having with the waiter before the car crashed... it's like INCREDIBLY sexually charged. very curious to know your thoughts on this

That's such an interesting observation, anon (and op!) and it's definitely one that I can see. You could even argue I think that Tom and Greg sort of fall into that category too, only the lines are a bit blurred in terms of who's the rich man and who's the working-class lover.

In many ways, I actually tend to think Greg's arc these days most resembles Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. He's a man in a suit that doesn't belong to him, inserting himself into a life he doesn't really have a place in, and while it's not sexual (they're cousins after all, haha) I think you could argue Kendall's the Dickie to Greg's Ripley – Kendall gives like Dickie does, but Greg has an incident where he oversteps with clothing (Ripley wears Dickie's clothes, and Greg assumes Kendall will buy him the watch, things both characters have been led to believe are okay because of murky boundaries) and then Greg (metaphorically to Ripley's literally) kills Kendall when Kendall tries to break things off with him.

It's a sort of flip in some ways of the trope you're talking about, but I think it operates the same world because both tropes are ultimately untited by class, desire and destruction.

None of these characters are happy, and so the process of seeking happiness becomes one ultimately entangled with desire, and when that thing doesn't offer happiness or sate a desire, the character destroys the thing, whether that be in jest (Roman and the trainer), accidentally (Kendall and Dodds), or deliberately (Logan and, well, everything, haha).

I think class plays a really significant role in all of that too, because class mobility is central to many of the characters motivation on the series. Even Logan's hunger for more power stems from the fact that for his formative years, he had none, and because he can't possibly believe he's now reached the top. Interestingly, I'd argue that feedback loop of desire and destruction is realised there too – he desired to provide a birthright to his children and now resents them for it, so seeks to destroy both them and it.

That sort of psychosexual aspect to desire and destruction's in play there too, I mean, god, the amount of sexual language that gets thrown out amongst the family is constant and often violent.

Which I think makes sense too – power, sex and violence is very often narratively entertwined, and isn't that just another way of saying class, desire and destruction?

But more to your point, yeah I think there's a really compelling and prominent throughline to how all the siblings use people in positions beneath them / the working class in ways that are either sexually coded, like Roman and the trainer, and Kendall and Dodds – both of which, fascinatingly, are reiterated in 3.08 between Shiv telling Logan about the former in the wake of the dick pic, and the latter with Logan asking Kendall straight up if he and Dodds left the wedding to fuck – or outright. Gosh, Connor and Willa are a sort of case in point, as is Shiv trying to bring one of the yacht staffers in for a threesome with her and Tom.

All of these elements are of that same cycle of violence although with Shiv, what gets destroyed is a part of her marriage and not the woman staffer, and for Willa, it's a part of her identity which Connor, by the end of s3, is literally trying to erase. (I could also talk about Willa as a case for the show's class mobility themes here, but that feels like a whole other post, haha). What's significant is that the working class are presented as something to be used by the upper class, and moulded to fit an experience. They function not as their own people, but often markers of a disparity of power and status that charges those with power and those who want power alike.

Roman's trainer moves his body in a way that articulates a physical power over him which Roman flips by toying with him over suing him. Dodds articulates a fantasy about kidnapping Kendall in that car - a desire to have power over the powerful - that Kendall plays along with, confident in his safety as someone with power (although I think you could also read it in a sense that Kendall's not someone who actually wants power, but again, a whole other post, haha). Willa uses Connor's power to build a career she'd never have otherwise, and while there's not a powerplay in the threesome exactly purely because it doesn't go ahead, I think you could argue that there's a shift of power in Shiv's scene with the whistleblower that might not be sexual in itself, but is steeped in the same power, violence, sex trichotomy given what it's about.

With the exception of Connor and Willa, I think these circumstances each involving people of the same sex is significant too because it touches on the way gender is both weaponised and - - mmm, I'm trying to think of the right word, but I guess I'd say a shorthand towards sameness and community? There's a degree of trust in being the same gender, an assumed understanding that your experiences are the same even when they starkly, starkly are not, and I think the show plays with that sort of mirror.

Characters see themselves in others, even when they have no real reason to, and it leaves them thinking the gap between them is smaller than it is. That gap is inviting though, and when they start to play in it, it all goes wrong, and what starts as intriguing becomes boring or repulsive or broken, which ultimately feeds the hungry mouths of desire and destruction all over.